The Bloodhound. 51 



the bloodhound is no exception, and it is, perhaps, wiser to accept the in 

 evitable, and frankly admit that we know very little about the origin o 

 this or any other breed, for at best we can but guess at the most probable 

 rom the very insufficient data at our command to form any certain 

 opinion. This is certainly a wiser and more dignified course than, as 

 many are disposed to do, prate about this, that, and the other breed 

 being the original dog of the British Islands. Of one thing I feel very 

 certain, that, could we go back, say, a thousand years, and select a 

 hundred of the finest specimens then living, and bring them as they then 

 were into competition with their descendants of- to-day, say, at an 

 Alexandra Palace show, the whole century of them would be quickly sent 

 out of the ring as mongrels ; they would stand no more chance than a 

 herd of our ancient wild cattle would against a dairy of shorthorns. 

 Such, at least, is my opinion, and if anyone disputes it, let him prove me 

 wrong. The first printed book touching on dogs that we have is the 

 "Book of Huntynge," by Juliana Barnes, and the list of dogs given by 

 her does not include Bloodhounds, but it does the Lemor and Raches, 

 both of which were dogs that ran their game by scent, and the former was 

 probably the nearest approach to our notions of a hound, and was used to 

 trace the wounded deer, &c., the name Lymer being taken from the fact of 

 his being led in leash. No doubt at this date, and for a long time 

 previous, English hounds were being modified by crosses from imported 

 dogs brought in by the Norman conquerors from France, whence they 

 originally came from the .East, and the slow hunting hounds of that day 

 have, by various commixture, produced for us the varieties we now 

 recognise. 



Dr. Caius mentions the bloodhound as " the greatest sort which serves 

 to hunt, having lips of a large size, and ears of no small length." In 

 Turberville's "Book of Hunting " there are a number of dogs portrayed, 

 all of the hound type, and with true hound ears, whereas, in the " Book 

 of St. Albans," printed a century earlier, the dogs represented have much 

 smaller ears, and thrown back, as the dogs are seen straining on the slips, 

 greyhound-like. Turberville has a good deal to say about hounds. If he 

 is to be credited, the progenitors of our modern dogs originally came from 

 Greece, and the first of them that reached this country were landed at 

 Totnes. It was the custom at that time to range the dogs according to 

 Colour ; of these, white and fallow, white spotted with red, and black 



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